THE ART & BUSINESS OF STORYTELLING | Top B-school

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Discovering the Art & Business of Storytelling: How to use stories to stand out, connect, and influence

24 May 2022
- admin
- Innovation & Design Thinking
“Storytelling can help people relate on a personal level to your business. This is a far deeper connection and can help build lasting relationships.“

~ Brian Kato

Stories may be used to inspire, instruct, clarify, and mobilize people in a variety of professional and personal circumstances. Storytelling is all around us, but especially important for individuals who work in marketing or communications. It’s become a significant catchphrase in our industry in the last few years. But what precisely is it? Here’s a crash course to help you catch up with the art of storytelling.

Heart versus mind

The mind responds to facts.

Messages at work are typically a combination of facts and figures organized in a logical order. When you’re confronted with one of them, your brain goes into language processing mode.

Stories touch your heart.

When you read or hear a story, your brain reacts in a different way, activating up to seven different areas at the same time. This includes the picture processing zone, which is 60,000 times faster than the language processing zone. Other activated zones include those that elicit emotions or control our other senses, such as touch, hearing, tasting, and even smelling.

A story has a stronger impact on your audience

As a result, science has proven that facts alone will not engage your brain as deeply as a strong tale will. But then you already knew that. When was the last time you cried or laughed aloud while looking at a spreadsheet?

However, labor is more than just numbers and statistics. Every day at work, a lot happens. We spent a significant amount of time there. We have good moments and bad times, we crave and dread, we have good times and bad times. After all, the vast majority of us at work are still people.

How to use storytelling in business

In business, there are three techniques to storytelling.
- To begin with, you can simply offer anything you want to express to your audience in the form of a story.
- Another strategy is to use true stories or anecdotes to explain or prove a point.
- Alternatively, you can employ storytelling tactics to elicit the same reaction in individuals that stories do.
Present your topic in the style of a tale.

There are various story patterns, such as the travel and return, the monster defeat, the quest, and so on. Instead of tossing your thoughts across a few PowerPoint slides, you may sometimes utilize a tale to express them. But be cautious: starting your corporate statement with “Once upon a time” may not always work.

Storytelling In The World Of Business

The terms nighttime, granny, movies, and bragging usually spring to mind when you think about storytelling (the last one is more of a personal thought). However, you can and should tell stories at work as well, especially any business action relies heavily on negotiations and persuasion. However, under pressure to achieve, leaders often tend to prioritize communication over imagination and creativity which can hinder growth and success..

What Makes story Good?

Storytelling is an art rather than a science. So, what distinguishes an excellent story from the rest? A good story starts with the protagonist and the everyday life that surrounds them. They then encounter a problem or an occurrence that causes them to lose their typical routine.

The story should then go on to explain how that character deals with the situation. Finally, it discusses how they overcame the obstacle.

Begin by describing what motivated you to establish the business. Tell a story about how your father used to sell toys on the streets when you were a kid. Alternatively, tell them about your company’s origins and how you battled to keep it alive. These are the stories people want to hear, these are the stories that your customers will connect with, these are the stories that will make you remembered and that is just plain good business strategy.

How Will Your Story End?

There are many qualities that make a good leader, but the truly exceptional ones combine these qualities into a meaningful and captivating tale to share with others. Great leaders must rely on what we’ve known since we were children to change tomorrow for the better: well-told stories are the key to touching the human heart and intellect.

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy WHY you do it. Storytelling gives your brand personality – what makes you different from your competitors? “

~ Yellowphin Digital Agency

Rajiv Dadwal
PGDM, Class of 2023